Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 9

CLAIRE: (_calling after him_) That end's always locked.

d.i.c.k: Claire darling, I wish you wouldn't say those startling things.

You do get away with it, but I confess it gives me a shock--and really, it's unwise.

CLAIRE: Haven't you learned that the best place to hide is in the truth?

(_as_ HARRY _returns_) Why won't you believe me, Harry, when I tell you the truth--about doors being locked?

HARRY: Claire, it's selfish of you to keep us from eating salt just because you don't eat salt.

CLAIRE: (_with one of her swift changes_) Oh, Harry! Try your egg without salt. Please--please try it without salt! (_an intensity which seems all out of proportion to the subject_)

HARRY: An egg demands salt.

CLAIRE: 'An egg demands salt.' Do you know, Harry, why you are such an unseasoned person? 'An egg demands salt.'

HARRY: Well, it doesn't always get it.

CLAIRE: But your spirit gets no lift from the salt withheld.

HARRY: Not an inch of lift. (_going back to his breakfast_)

CLAIRE: And pleased--so pleased with itself, for getting no lift. Sure, it is just the right kind of spirit--because it gets no lift. (_more brightly_) But, d.i.c.k, you must have tried your egg without salt.

d.i.c.k: I'll try it now. (_he goes to the breakfast table_)

CLAIRE: You must have tried and tried things. Isn't that the way one leaves the normal and gets into the byways of perversion?

HARRY: Claire.

d.i.c.k: (_pus.h.i.+ng back his egg_) If so, I prefer to wait for the salt.

HARRY: Claire, there is a _limit_.

CLAIRE: Precisely what I had in mind. To perversion too there is a limit. So--the fortifications are una.s.sailable. If one ever does get out, I suppose it is--quite unexpectedly, and perhaps--a bit terribly.

HARRY: Get out where?

CLAIRE: (_with a bright smile_) Where you, darling, will never go.

HARRY: And from which you, darling, had better beat it.

CLAIRE: I wish I could. (_to herself_) No--no I don't either

(_Again this troubled thing turns her to the plant. She puts by themselves the two which_ ANTHONY _covered with paper bags. Is about to remove these papers_. HARRY _strikes a match_.)

CLAIRE: (_turning sharply_) You can't smoke here. The plants are not used to it.

HARRY: Then I should think smoking would be just the thing for them.

CLAIRE: There is design.

HARRY: (_to_ d.i.c.k) Am I supposed to be answered? I never can be quite sure at what moment I am answered.

(_They both watch_ CLAIRE, _who has uncovered the plants and is looking intently into the flowers. From a drawer she takes some tools. Very carefully gives the rose pollen to an unfamiliar flower--rather wistfully unfamiliar, which stands above on a small shelf near the door of the inner room_.)

d.i.c.k: What is this you're doing, Claire?

CLAIRE: Pollenizing. Crossing for fragrance.

d.i.c.k: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it?

HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so.

CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious?

HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell d.i.c.k?

d.i.c.k: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (_he turns away_)

(_At that she wants to tell him. Helpless, as one who cannot get across a stream, starts uncertainly_.)

CLAIRE: I want to give fragrance to Breath of Life (_faces the room beyond the wall of gla.s.s_)--the flower I have created that is outside what flowers have been. What has gone out should bring fragrance from what it has left. But no definite fragrance, no limiting enclosing thing. I call the fragrance I am trying to create Reminiscence. (_her hand on the pot of the wistful little flower she has just given pollen_) Reminiscent of the rose, the violet, arbutus--but a new thing--itself.

Breath of Life may be lonely out in what hasn't been. Perhaps some day I can give it reminiscence.

d.i.c.k: I see, Claire.

CLAIRE: I wonder if you do.

HARRY: Now, Claire, you're going to be gay to-day, aren't you? These are Tom's last couple of days with us.

CLAIRE: That doesn't make me especially gay.

HARRY: Well, you want him to remember you as yourself, don't you?

CLAIRE: I would like him to. Oh--I would like him to!

HARRY: Then be amusing. That's really you, isn't it, d.i.c.k?

d.i.c.k: Not quite all of her--I should say.

CLAIRE: (_gaily_) Careful, d.i.c.k. Aren't you indiscreet? Harry will be suspecting that I am your latest strumpet.

HARRY: Claire! What language you use! A person knowing you only by certain moments could never be made to believe you are a refined woman.

CLAIRE: True, isn't it, d.i.c.k?

HARRY: It would be a good deal of a lark to let them listen in at times--then tell them that here is the flower of New England!

CLAIRE: Well, if this is the flower of New England, then the half has never been told.